The Flyer Guy Scam That Almost Cost Me Thousands | Lessons for Wholesalers

What's going on, everyone? I know why you're here today. You're here for Nathan Payne's Wholesaling Storytime, Tales from the Trenches. And guys, I got a doozy for you today. I got a story that will blow your socks off because it still makes me laugh to this very day that we got duped. We got tricked by our flyer guy, okay? And if you've ever hired someone and just trusted that they would do the work that you pay them for, you're gonna love this story because we did the same thing. We said, oh, we're paying this guy, He's going to do what we say, but you're going to find out quickly what will happen in the real estate industry if you pay someone to do something and you don't check on them and you don't check their work. So I'm just reflecting. This is a journal from, you know, my beginnings in wholesaling. So you guys can see exactly what it's like to get started in real estate investing. And if you do things like I did, what to avoid. That's what this storytime is for, tales from the trenches, still in the trenches. And I like being in the trenches because that's where you learn the most, but learn from my experience. And that's why we're here today. And I'm reminiscing about the time, like I said, we hired a flyer guy. Guy to, uh, flyer for us, and it didn't work out as well as I thought it would. But we're going to be telling you guys exactly what not to do and about the story. And I got a gift for you at the end of the video. If you're subscribed to our weekly newsletter, you get free gifts every single week. Every story that I tell comes with a marketing list, comes with a calculator, it comes with something specific that will help you in your real estate investing journey, just like it helped me. I got thousands and thousands of resources that are in my Drive that are just sitting there. So I said, let me give them away, but let me give an engaging story that will help you use these and know how to use these. Spent thousands of dollars all for your benefit. So just subscribe to the newsletter, just go to painlessflipping.com, and you get all these resources and especially the gift that I'm going to be giving today. All right, let's dive right into this story, everybody. So if you didn't join us on the last episode or the previous episode where we talked about how I did a $19,000 deal by flyering homes, we would just flyer every house in the neighborhood. We would go to neighborhoods that were a little bit older, built in the 1970s, and we would leave flyers on their door saying, hey, we bought a house recently in the neighborhood, looking to buy more. And we would get calls. We'd get calls from people that are upset saying, don't leave your trash on my door. We'd get people saying, yes, I want to sell. So that was one of the marketing strategies I used to implement, and we would get a lot of deals later on. But when I first started, that $19,000 deal was the first. And if you are subscribed to the newsletter at painlessflipping.com, we actually give you that exact template of what it says, what it looked like, the paper to use, all that. But anyway, so where we are right now in my journey is we just made that $19,000, and we're like, well, let's hire this out because I don't want to be flyering all day. There's other things I can do. So let me leverage of that marketing money and let me hire some people. So the next thing we did is once we decided to go all in on the flyers, we hit Facebook. We went to Facebook, just made a bunch of posts on Facebook saying, hey, we're looking to hire flyer guys, we're looking to hire flyer distributors. And we made those posts on Utah Jobs for Sale, like we went to all those little groups of people looking for jobs. And we had many applicants that were interested in what we were offering at the time in 2018 was 5 cents a flyer. It was like 5 to 10 cents a flyer. If you drop the flyer, that's 10 cents. And then you— and what we would say is you could do like $100 an hour, or you could do a certain amount where it came out to be like $7 to $10 an hour depending how fast you went. And like I said, we had multiple applicants, but we found the chosen one. We found the chosen one, or so what we thought was the chosen one. What ended up happening is making through it all, making up all those posts, people would come into the broker's office we were working at and we would interview people to see if they wanted to fly her. We had like a stay-at-home mom that wanted to fly her while she, uh, she pushed her stroller, her kid in her stroller. She did that, she did that for a day, and she's like, this job sucks, I'm not doing it. And we're like, okay. But finally, like I said, We found the chosen one. In comes a guy named Rob. All right. Rob comes in. Just imagine long blonde ponytail, tall, lanky guy and combat boots on, white tank top, giant combat boots, black. Looked like he had been walking for thousands of miles. Like it just— the boots were worn out, but he was— he was— you could just tell the man knew how to walk. All right. And what ended up happening is he's like, guys, I love walking. I walk everywhere. Okay. That's— I enjoy it. I really have fun walking. And you're telling me you can pay me to go walk? I'm in. And we're like, okay, I think we found the chosen one. We found the right guy. He loves to walk. He's got the boots, he's got the ponytail that waves in the air as he walks and bounces every time he steps. He's the one. So we hired him. We said, you're in, you're in, buddy. You're the flyer guy. And what we did at the time is we had this old ghetto Garmin watch, okay? It was a watch that like you could track where you walked. I think people use it for like riding bikes and like tracking their pace and everything. But we gave it to him. We said, okay, you got to wear this watch when you go out and fly. We're going to give you the flyers. You're going to go and just go go to neighborhoods and flyer, leave them on the doors, and you're gonna do this for 8 hours a day. My man was ready. He was ready to rock and roll. We believed in him. So we told him exactly what neighborhoods to go hit, and he started his journey. Okay, the first day he goes out, he comes in— well, we hired him the next day, he's ready. He comes in, ponytail and all, wife beater, tank top. And but mind you, this is in the middle of coming to like almost the end of the summer where it's like the hottest here in Utah, blazing hot. Okay, and he's coming with the tank top, jeans, and the combat boots, and he's ready to roll. So we give him about 100, 200 300, maybe it might even been like 500 flyers. And we said, okay, knock those out. Here's some tape to put them on the door. Go do your thing. And my man, he goes. And I didn't think about him putting on sunscreen. I didn't— I wasn't really worried about his skin. But he went out and the next day, the next day he comes out and the man is red as a lobster. This guy got straight burned to a— unfortunately, I won't say crisp, but he got burned. He had sunburn. He was red and he was hurting. He was like, guys, I can barely move. I was there for 8 hours flyering that neighborhood and I got burnt. So the guy had to take a week off. Oh my gosh, a whole week he took off because his sunburn was so bad. And we're like, hey man, are you gonna come back? And he's like, I'm finally ready to come back. He texted us. So eventually Rob comes back, he's ready to rock. He comes back and guess what he's wearing this time? My man is wearing a giant bucket hat with a cape on the back. He's wearing a full-blown like long sleeve. He is not going to let the sun get him this time. Rob is ready to flyer. So we're excited, you know, he loves walking. He told us he loved walking. Now he's equipped for the sun in the summer in Utah. He's not going to get burnt. And we start getting phone calls and we're excited. We're getting calls and we're setting appointments because he's leaving the flyer saying, hey, we want to buy your house. And people are calling. Some people are calling mad, but that's just how it is. Send mail, send flyers, send anything. People are going to get upset in this industry of like, you know, buying houses, or I'm sure they'll get mad at anything. Like if you're doing landscaping, they'll probably get mad if you leave something on their door. Anyway, Rob's doing well. And, uh, the watch, I'm I'm checking the watch occasionally and I'm seeing that he's going to where he's supposed to be going. And, uh, you know, 2 or 3 weeks goes by and the calls die down. You know, the calls aren't going and I'm checking the watch. Maybe I'm actually not checking that much because I'm like, okay, why would the guy not be walking anymore? He's saying he's picking up the flyers, he says he's going, but the calls die down. And I say, Corey, uh, it's kind of weird. You know, we were getting a lot of calls before. Rob's still going out there, but our calls have freaking diminished. They've dwindled a ton. And you know what's going on? Of He says to me, hey, have you checked the Garmin watch? Have you checked online to see his location? I say, man, I'm sorry, I've let that slide. I trusted the guy. I thought— I didn't even think to check anymore because I was like, I thought he had it. I go and check, and the line that the Garmin watch shows, that the trajectory of like where he's been walking, it's just straight lines on the sidewalk. And I go back, I look a little bit, and he's— it's just straight lines, you know? He's not going to the doors according to the, uh, the watch. The, the— that shows the, the journey or whatever, right? The GPS. And I'm like, man, it looks like he's just walking on the sidewalk. He's been doing this for a couple weeks when the call started dying down. There's no way he's just going out there for 8 hours a day and just walking the sidewalks. That's a waste of time. That's what I said to myself. And Corey's like, maybe there's something malfunctioned with the watch. Maybe the watch isn't working. You know, I got an idea, man. Why don't we— why don't we just go follow him? We know exactly where he's at. Let's go drive over there and just go see what he's up to. So we in the car and we drive to one of the neighborhoods in West Valley he's flyering. And, uh, we're driving through the neighborhood where he's been there for a couple hours. We don't see a single flyer on the door, not one tape, nothing, zero, nada. We see him, he's laying in one of the church parking lots. He's just laying on the grass. We're like, this is kind of fun. We're like detectives at this point. We knew he wasn't doing it at that point. We knew he was just messing around with us. So we, uh, we just parked the car and we watch him, and the man's taking a nap for about 20 minutes on the grass, just under a tree, just sleeping. Like, okay, all right, he's napping. That's fine. I guess that's cool. So he eventually gets up. He gets up and starts walking. We're like, okay, okay, here we go. We caught him napping. Is he gonna start flyering? And guess what? There's a video. We have video evidential evidence. We got proof. But we catch him just walking. He's missing houses now. He's not flyering houses. He's literally just walking past all the houses he should be flyering, the houses that he says he's flyering that we should— we were paying him for the last couple weeks. He's just passing them by. And Corey's starting to get fired up. He's like, man, I'm about to go pull up on him and tell him we him. Said, no, no, no, no, we'll get him another way, Corey. Let's go. We know he's not doing it. Let's see how long he keeps this lie going for, because we're not going to pay him obviously anymore. Let's go back to the office. So we go back to the office, and I'm like, hey, he's gonna come back for his next batch of flyers. At this point, we don't care. Let's see how long he says he lasts with the flyer, the 500 batch we gave him the last time he came in. So he comes in a couple days later. He's like, hey guys— can you imagine this, just lying like this? He says, hey guys, I just finished the other batch of flyers. Uh, I'm ready for my new batch. I'm ready the new stack. And, uh, this is how I played it. I was like, hey, Rob, Robert, it's kind of weird, you know, we haven't been getting any phone calls from any of the flyers you say you've been holding out. What do you think's going on? He's like, I don't know, man, I don't know what could be going on. I've been flyering. And that's what he said. He's like, I've been doing it. And I was like, hmm, you know what, we actually— and I, I wanted to give him the opportunity to just admit it. I didn't want to say, hey, we caught you, buddy. I wanted to give him the opportunity. So I said, that's interesting. We actually drove one of the neighborhoods that you said you fliered. We didn't see a single flier on any door. What do you think could happen? And this is what he says. He says, maybe the wind blew them all off. It was probably the wind, or maybe everyone picked them up by the time you saw them. And I was like, oh, okay, so no calls, maybe the wind blew them off. Listen, man. And I couldn't take it more because he was— he just wouldn't fess up. So I said, we actually— look, man, we actually were driving, we were following you, and one, one of these days, and we saw that you weren't doing anything. We saw you taking a nap and just walking the streets. How long have you been doing this for? And then he just completely broke down, and he was like shaking like he just got caught because he did. He was nervous and he was like, because he was in our office. I didn't— I don't know if he thought we were going to attack him. We weren't going to do anything, but he was nervous. Oh gosh, they caught me, he's thinking. And I was like, how long you been doing this for? He's like, I don't know, guys. He's like, well, look, man, we're obviously not going to pay you. You've been lying to us for a long time. We're not going to do anything to you. We're not going to hurt you. Chill, buddy. Don't stop shaking. It's all good. But do you at least have the flyers? Do you have the flyers we gave you? Because we can use those since you didn't use them. And he's like, oh guys, I'm so I threw them away. Like, you threw away like the 2,000, 3,000 flyers we've given you over the last couple of weeks to flyer? He's like, yeah, I threw them away. I'm like, I'm about to charge you for those. I didn't say that, but in my mind I was like, anyway, he obviously— we didn't have anything left to pay him because he had been lying for a couple of weeks. And I was like, well, dude, you at least have the tape we gave you because we'd like the tape, you know, because we're balling on a budget that time. We're brand new. He's like, nah, I ain't got the tape. I'm sorry. I threw that away too. So we're like, dude, okay, well, obviously you're fired. You're obviously fired, buddy. You know, I'm not— I never— I don't think I get angry very quickly. Maybe others would say different, but I was just like, okay, thanks, man. Like, you're fired. I guess at that time I hadn't really fired anybody really, because in Dish Network when I did door-to-door, it was mainly people just quit because they couldn't handle it. This guy didn't quit. He just was going to keep going forever all summer if we didn't catch him. So I was just like, you're fired. I guess you can just leave right now. I guess that's what happens when you get fired. And he was like, okay. So he left, and me and Corey were just like, dang, man, well, we probably should have checked a lot sooner when we getting calls on the Garmin watch or just went and followed them before. So none of this would have happened. Now, look, I think it cost us maybe like $400, $500 of paying him before we reconciled and figured everything out. But yeah, we got lied to. And that is looking back, I think it's a funny story because, yeah, just like I just trusted that the man would do what he said and I figured no one would just be walking 8 hours a day, coming in for batches of flyers every 3 or 4 days. Days when normally that's when you'd be done. I just figured, I, you know, I trusted but I did not verify. So, you know, the lessons that I learned from this is that even though a person can come in and look the part, you know, the walking combat boots, said that they love walking, whatever they say, you have to verify. You don't know how many people we've hired that they talk a big game. Oh, I'll close every deal. I'm the best at this. I love talking to people. I love this or that. And then you hire them and they're the complete opposite. They don't do anything they Hey, they'll do it. Happens all the time. Okay, so we can trust, but you need to verify. So that's one of the lessons that I learned. Another one was that you got to have an app that you trust as well. Like the Garmin watch, we were always questioning whether it worked or not. Now I use software and apps that like exactly tracks like whether you're zigzagging or you're going to the door or not. And that's what I want to give you guys for subscribing to the newsletter at painlessflipping.com. When you receive this story, I'm going to give you a 7-day free trial to the app that I use to not only track when I'm driving for dollars I'm tracking when, you know, when people are flyering for me, but it also does many other awesome things like you can skip trace right from there. The cool thing about the app is you can mark houses that look crappy while you're knocking or walking or flyering, and you can actually skip trace them right there and call them while you're right in front of their house, which is a great move because we've done tons of deals through Driving for Dollars looking at distressed houses. So I'm going to give you that app, 7-day free trial, and it will help you succeed if you decide to do the strategy. Guys, I talked to another guy, I was at a mastermind the other day. He does about 20 to 25 deals from knocking, pre-foreclosure doors, people in pre-foreclosure, probate. He does this, and then obviously if they don't answer the phone, he leaves a flyer. So this is a strategy that works extremely well, especially if you're on a lower budget and you want to save money. Works like magic. The only reason I don't implement as much, because I don't want to manage that kind of team at the moment. But I tell you, if you are brand new, this strategy of flyering and knocking is money, especially if you're really targeted and you have buyers and you do it the painless way. You're not just going to random neighbor you don't know anything who will buy it. You got to have an understanding of who can buy the deals if you're going to wholesale them to them. As reflect on this journey, it lets me know that, you know, obviously I've leveled up as a manager. And if you struggle with hiring people, you need to reflect and be like, what were my struggles? Just like I'm reflecting. Well, my struggles was I wasn't really checking on him. I was just hoping and trusting. And if that's your management style, it's not going to work out all the time. I can tell you right now, if you just hire someone and you're like, I believe he's going to do what he said he would, not a good management process. I'm telling you, strategy is bad. Don't do that. And my last thing I want to do is I want to invite you to subscribe to the newsletter. Again, it has many great resources worth thousands of dollars that given to you. Subscribe at painlessflipping.com. And if you're watching this live or you watch this later, please give this video a thumbs up so it can get in front of more people. And if you have any stories that are similar, if you want to engage, if you want to tell me, yo, Nate, that was a great story. Nate, that sucked, you went way too long on the talking about his ponytail. Doesn't matter. Go ahead, let me know, because I want to hear your feedback. It's important to me to know how you guys feel about what I'm saying, because this is for you. It's for all of us, right? So anyway, I hope that story was fun, and I appreciate you guys being on Nathan Payne's Wholesaling Storytime: Tales from the Trenches. Hey everybody, what's up?

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